Mattie Ree Neal is a 21 year old artist and developed a love for painting at an early age by growing up in her father, Michael Shane Neal’s studio, spending time with artists like Everett Raymond Kinstler and Dawn Whitelaw, plein air painting, and visiting museums. Mattie always wanted to become an artist and pursued an education in representational painting by studying directly with many of today's foremost painters and sculptors through workshops, classes, and internships.

She is now living in both Nashville and New York City and is taking portrait commissions. Mattie is also teaching workshops and weekly classes with Drawing America when in Manhattan.

Mattie received the 2020 Scholastic American Visions Award for Painting with a ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York. She also won the 2019 and 2020 Congressional Art Competitions for the 5th District of Tennessee and her winning painting was on display for two years at the U. S. Capitol.  Also in 2020, Mattie received an honorable mention in the Art Renewal Center Salon, was a finalist in the Portrait Society's Members Only Competition, and was featured in both Southwest Art and International Artist Magazine. She has most recently been included in the Select 50 in the 2023 Portrait Society of America International Competition. Her piece was juried into the top 100 of 3,075 entries.

Mattie is a member of the Portrait Society of America and the Salmagundi Club and her work is in the collection of The Players Club of New York. In 2022 Mattie was chosen by the MET Museum's copyist program to take where she participated in a study of John Singer Sargent painting copies from life in the museum. She has been attending the annual Portrait Society conferences since she was 8 years old, and is very excited to be a future generation member of the 2024 faculty.